Ratface twitched as the goblin glamour watched them with a smile. It hadn’t bothered with a knife and just let its hands hang loosely at its side.

The idea that she had wanted to hurt another goblin made her feel sick. She hadn’t known but still. The idea a goblin wanted to hurt her made her feel even sicker. The silent dream was suddenly replaced by screaming. Ratface couldn’t remember who they were and yet she knew that they were the screams of her tribe.

It was clear Halmir and the elf glamour could hear it too. They looked around in confusion as Ratface began to freeze. The elf glamour grabbed her hands.

“Look at me,” it said, “he isn’t really a goblin, it’s a trick. It’s like if Isabelle put an illusion over someone.”

“That’s not quite true, is it? Glamours can die,” said the goblin. He was right. Intellectually Ratface understood that he wasn’t really a goblin. He was a creature of magic. Yet her body wouldn’t move.

She looked over to where he’d been, and he was gone.

“Look out!” cried Halmir. He pushed her to the side. A kick slammed down into the ground where she’d just been, and the goblin landed between them. The other two attacked; Halmir in a fury of claws, and the elf with a sword she’d pulled from somewhere.

They were outclassed. He weaved between the two with insulting ease and only then did Ratface realise how much puppeteering her body had forced him to hold back. He caught the elf’s wrist and pulled her in front of Halmir, forcing him to pull back his claws. The pause was all the goblin needed. He kicked the elf into Halmir, and they went stumbling back. He glanced at Ratface and that was all the warning she got. It was all she could do to bring her hands up to block as he kicked her away.

The kick was powerful. Her arms were shaking just from blocking it and she’d been pushed back at least a meter. On the other side, Halmir and the elf were getting up. The two of them looked rough. Halmir had entered this dream already beaten up and the elf glamour was barely holding itself together. She clutched at her stomach where the goblin had hit her, and her form flickered. Ratface knew it was only a matter of time before the glamour fell apart. Her mother had been right, she was going to kill the her.

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Yet what was she to do? Fighting a goblin, even a glamour of one, was antithetical to who she was. She knew that if she attacked the goblin she’d be lost in some small way. What could she do?

Halmir and the elf glamour were fighting desperately against the goblin as it wreaked havoc between them. Any attempt at retaliation on their part had quickly been ruled out and they were just trying to survive. Halmir was making liberal use of his teleportation and shifting to keep ahead. At one point he turned into a rat, jumped onto the goblins fist, then turned back. All to push the fist down away from the elf’s face and give her an opportunity to block. Ratface had to come up with a solution before they lost.

Her eyes strayed around the room, looking for anything that’d get her out of this situation. The fuzzy part of the memory where her mother lay stared back at her. What was it that the elf glamour had told her before? A glamour couldn’t exist if its purpose was already completed or failed right?

She sprinted at the memory. Touching it hadn’t worked before but right now they were here in a more real way than she’d ever been. She instinctively knew that if she could just reach it, she’d be able to view it.

The goblin glamour rushed at her as she knew it would. This was its whole purpose for being here. He grimaced as he chased her and Ratface kept her mind blank, only focused on getting to the memory. She couldn’t afford to get distracted.

Halmir and the elf took the opportunity she’d presented to them. They rushed the goblin glamour. Nipping at his heels and getting cheap shot in where they could.

He blocked them and tried to retaliate but he couldn’t ever finish them off without letting Ratface get away and he couldn’t afford to let that happen.

She was getting closer and closer. When she was nearly within reach, she risked a look back.

The glamour was just behind her. It had manged to slam the other two into the ground and they lay there groaning. It was going to reach her before she could make it.

There was a pop, and she felt the familiar weight of a small rat on her shoulder. Halmir jumped out and leapt at the goblin glamour. It caught him, but he shifted back into a rat noble and rent a claw down its face. It screamed and slammed him into the ground. He didn’t get back up. Ratface cried out but she didn’t stop moving. She wouldn’t waste the chance he’d given her.

The goblin glamour reached for her, but it was too late. Halmir had wasted enough of its time. Her hand brushed against the memory and the world stopped. The four of them frozen as the memory slammed into vivid reality.

The village around her reappeared. Its wide fence surrounding it with a thick Kauri in the middle. The huts she’d grown up running around reappearing as she remembered it all. Ratface didn’t have eyes for any of it. She’d look back later but right now she needed to see her. The sheer need pushing away any other thoughts.

She couldn’t find her and for a second Ratface thought she’d failed. Then she appeared next to the tree. A slightly younger Ratface sitting at her feet.

Her mother.